shambles
Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
shambles/ˈʃamblz/
▶plural noun [treated as sing.]
- 1 informal a chaotic state.
- 2 archaic a butcher's slaughterhouse.
– origin ME (in the sense ‘meat market’): pl. of earlier shamble ‘stool, stall’, of W. Gmc origin, from L. scamellum, dimin. of scamnum ‘bench’.
'shambles' also found in these Oxford entries:
